Who Gives in American: Interesting Results

One might fault Ann Coulter for strident tone and lack of civility, but most often the points she makes ring true.  I've exerpted from her December 22, 2010 column which discusses a recent study by Arthur Brooks (Syracuse University) about charitable giving in America.  The question on the table: who gives to charity?  Well, it turns out that conservative Christians are the most generous with their income.  Secular liberals - least generous with their income.  Interesting.

I have removed most of Ms. Coulter's funny lines and commentary for the purpose of this blog, but I do encourage you to go directly to her column and read the better version of the article.  You'll get a chuckle.

Meantime,  the story goes like this...

AnnCoulter.com - Archived Article: SCROOGE WAS A LIBERAL

Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks' study of charitable giving in America found that conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than liberals do, despite the fact that liberals have higher incomes than conservatives.

In his book "Who Really Cares?" Brooks compared the charitable donations of religious conservatives, secular liberals, secular conservatives and "religious" liberals.

Brooks found that conservatives donate more in time, services and even
blood than other Americans, noting that if liberals and moderates gave
as much blood as conservatives do, the blood supply would increase by
about 45 percent.


On average, a person who attends religious services and does not believe
in the redistribution of income will give away 100 times more -- and 50
times more to secular charities -- than a person who does not attend
religious services and strongly believes in the redistribution of
income.


Brooks wrote that he was shocked by his conclusions because he believed
liberals "genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did" --
probably because liberals are always telling us that.



So he re-ran the numbers and gathered more data, but it kept
coming out the same. "In the end," he says, "I had no option but to
change my views."


Another very other study on the subject has produced similar results. Indeed, a
Google study of philanthropy found an even greater disparity, with
conservatives giving 50 percent more than liberals. The Google study
showed that liberals gave more to secular causes overall, but
conservatives still gave more as a percentage of their incomes.



The Catalogue for Philanthropy analyzed a decade of state and
federal tax returns and found that the red states were far more generous
than the blue states, with the highest percentage of tightwads living
in the liberal Northeast.

JMS 1/1/11